Emerging biotechnologies: full report - Nuffield Council on Bioethics
Emerging biotechnologies: full report - Nuffield Council on Bioethics
Emerging biotechnologies: full report - Nuffield Council on Bioethics
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E m e r g i n g b i o t e c h n o l o g i e s<br />
document. The main places in which support for <str<strong>on</strong>g>biotechnologies</str<strong>on</strong>g> is decided are a small number<br />
of pharmaceutical and industrial firms, research councils, medical charities and a large number of<br />
dedicated biotechnology firms.<br />
43. Strategic advice to government <strong>on</strong> the ‘big picture’ of biotechnology has declined with the winding<br />
up of a number of high level bodies created at the beginning of the century, which has reduced<br />
opportunities for broad debate and public access. At the same time government technology<br />
policy, including in the life sciences, has become increasingly framed by the single dimensi<strong>on</strong> of<br />
ec<strong>on</strong>omic growth. While ec<strong>on</strong>omic benefits are important, they are not solely important, and they<br />
risk obscuring other important values, though these are more difficult to quantify. The ec<strong>on</strong>omic<br />
paradigm now dominates policy relevant to emerging <str<strong>on</strong>g>biotechnologies</str<strong>on</strong>g> in the UK, except the policy<br />
of charitable funders who c<strong>on</strong>tinue to have a substantial role. Areas such as synthetic biology<br />
and pers<strong>on</strong>alised medicine become a focus for funding by virtue of estimates of the market value<br />
that they promise to deliver. Such policies, however, lack relevant evidence in support, although<br />
they c<strong>on</strong>form to a number of assumpti<strong>on</strong>s that have become comm<strong>on</strong>place in research policy.<br />
44. Reflecti<strong>on</strong>s <strong>on</strong> research policy assume that states should fund research because it is a ‘public<br />
good’ that would be underprovided by the market. However, the real reas<strong>on</strong>s states fund<br />
research are more complex, and include nati<strong>on</strong>al security and ec<strong>on</strong>omic growth. We find that<br />
there is a case for publicly funded research to generate knowledge so that it can be made<br />
available to all, independently of private interests, in order to defuse the dangers of<br />
‘overpromising’ and ‘overclaiming’ that we have identified.<br />
45. We investigate the assumpti<strong>on</strong> that ‘Britain is good at research but poor at commercialisati<strong>on</strong>’.<br />
We find that Britain is indeed good, but not excepti<strong>on</strong>ally good, at research compared to its major<br />
competitors; while <strong>on</strong> the other hand it has actually been reas<strong>on</strong>ably successful in<br />
commercialisati<strong>on</strong> (although this success has declined in recent history). However, there is little<br />
evidence to link the relatively str<strong>on</strong>g underpinning research in UK instituti<strong>on</strong>s with successful<br />
commercialisati<strong>on</strong> by UK companies. Given the transnati<strong>on</strong>al organisati<strong>on</strong> of research, and the<br />
multinati<strong>on</strong>al organisati<strong>on</strong> of the biotechnology industry, <strong>on</strong>ly a fracti<strong>on</strong> of research and<br />
development feeds into nati<strong>on</strong>al growth. While there is certainly a need for better ec<strong>on</strong>omic<br />
evidence in this area, we recommend that the determinati<strong>on</strong> of biotechnology policy should<br />
attend explicitly to diverse perspectives and bodies of evidence rather than privileging a<br />
single, quantitative frame of evaluati<strong>on</strong> (such as ec<strong>on</strong>omic costs and benefits, or costs<br />
and benefits reduced to ec<strong>on</strong>omic values); this should feed in not <strong>on</strong>ly to government policy<br />
but also to funding bodies and, indeed, to research instituti<strong>on</strong>s.<br />
46. Another assumpti<strong>on</strong> in the policy literature is that biotechnology is central to social and ec<strong>on</strong>omic<br />
transformati<strong>on</strong> and should be supported, drawing <strong>on</strong> an implicitly linear model of technical<br />
change. However, such assumpti<strong>on</strong>s lack the support of reliable correlati<strong>on</strong>s between innovati<strong>on</strong><br />
and social and ec<strong>on</strong>omic outcomes, and fail to take into account the complexity of real-world<br />
innovati<strong>on</strong> systems. We find that the difficulties facing the pharmaceutical industry and lack of<br />
returns <strong>on</strong> its investment in biotechnology over thirty years give grounds for greater cauti<strong>on</strong>. We<br />
recommend that there is a need for serious evaluati<strong>on</strong> and assessment of past research<br />
policies, both of Government as a whole and of particular public funding bodies, to<br />
understand in what c<strong>on</strong>diti<strong>on</strong>s, if any, selective approaches to support for biotechnology<br />
are plausible. We find that selective approaches in research policy are likely to be fruitful <strong>on</strong>ly in<br />
very unusual c<strong>on</strong>diti<strong>on</strong>s and, as a way of hedging against uncertainty, recommend that policy<br />
makers should c<strong>on</strong>sider adopting an approach to social objectives that fosters diversity of<br />
research approaches, not just within the particular domains of individual funding bodies<br />
but across physical and life sciences, and the social sciences, combined with selective<br />
c<strong>on</strong>diti<strong>on</strong>s of innovati<strong>on</strong> that involve social benefit rather than just market value.<br />
47. We examine the assumpti<strong>on</strong> that detailed priorities in basic research are set by researchers<br />
under a general strategic steer from government (loosely referred to as the ‘Haldane principle’)<br />
and find that the issue of who c<strong>on</strong>trols UK research policy is far from clear, although business<br />
and industry figures occupy prominent places in the key decisi<strong>on</strong> making bodies (advisory bodies<br />
such as the Technology Strategy Board, and the research councils). We take note of initiatives to<br />
include and even instituti<strong>on</strong>alise broader societal perspectives in research strategy but find there<br />
is a persistent asymmetry of influence. We therefore recommend that research policy should<br />
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